In general, guilt by association works better when people have some idea of who the association is. On some level, the William Ayers stuff never took off because...who? When? And then there was the odd effort to elevate Middle East scholar Rashid Khalidi into some sort of campaign bogeyman. Again: Who? When? Why? This efforts seems to have sprung from something of an availability bias on the part of McCain's advisers: Khalidi, like Juan Cole and other respected Middle East scholars, gives them night terrors. How can international Jewry possibly stand against the Palestinian sympathies of Middle East scholars? But more than that, the necons are envious. For all their bluster, they spend their time on the think tank circuit and are perfectly aware of how little respect they command from more legitimate experts. That's even truer now than six years ago. Which is how you get Michael Rubin, who has Doug Feith's legendary Office of Special Plans on his resume, saying things like "it may be worth revisiting the quality of Khalidi’s scholarship and how he subordinates scholarly integrity to polemic." Seriously dude? You're attacking Khalidi's scholarly legitimacy? As Matt Duss says, "I understand Rubin’s hostility toward Khalidi, though. Rashid Khalidi is a highly regarded academic whose work is taken seriously, whereas Michael Rubin is a second-tier neocon hack known for having served as one of Doug Feith’s oompa-loompas."
